I understand that it's fanfiction and that you are playing in an established world that has its own rules and canon, but please, please, please, label an AU as an AU. I cannot begin to elaborate on how stabby it makes me to read a story and get into it and 2/3 of the way through the character just busts out with something off the wall - like wings.

Sherlock Holmes does not have a uterus and therefor cannot be pregnant with Watson's lovechild.

John Watson is not an incubus.

They do not live in a spaceship called the Baker Street.

All of this is fine and could be quite entertaining if I know that it is an AU from the beginning!

On that same token, if a fanfiction has a male/male or female/female relationship, or even male/female relationship that is not established in Canon... your story is an AU. Please label it as such. Also, please give a warning that it does indeed have m/m or f/f or even f/m for folks who don't like that stuff, K? I am looking at you, fanfiction author of 'The Sentinel' fanfic, who tricked me! One minute, lovely story la la la la la... then BAM! Jim and Blair playing a game of scrabble.

I went "O.o but... they're roommates... and they are both straight in the series.... what!? O.o..."

I'd say it's an AU if there's evidence in-canon that contradicts the fanfiction. Sherlock Holmes as the Crown Prince of a Ruritanian kingdom somewhere near the Black Sea? Definitely an AU. But you could give Irene Adler any number of adventures or back stories without conflicting with what Doyle wrote about her. Again, there are characters who are clearly, from what's in the canon, straight: sometimes the author says so. In other cases an author describes enough of the character's life that it's a pretty good inference, even if the narrative voice never says "Mary was completely indifferent to the charms of other women" or "Simon ignored men and women alike; his only interest was his work." On the other hand, if the story makes it clear that the character has to marry and produce heirs, and he agrees with that need, but we never get his own viewpoint, his marrying doesn't prove he's straight rather than bi (or even gay but doing his duty for his country).

Logged

Any advice that requires the use of a time machine may safely be ignored.

My pet peeve is ADVERBS. I once tried to read a Nora Roberts book while on a long bus trip.The number of adverbs in each sentence had me almost gagging.I ended up tucking the book into the elasticised holdall. At the end of the trip the driver says"Please take all your belongings".I was terrified that some Helpful Henry would remind me that I had forgotten my book.

I went "O.o but... they're roommates... and they are both straight in the series.... what!? O.o..."

Many fanfic authors go "Challenge accepted" to that.

Which is fine- so long as you mark it as slash. Not marking it and letting people walk into it is considered rude, at least in the fandoms I'm in. (BTW, where on earth do you find gen Sentinel fic? I don't think I've ever seen it.)

While I love me some slash, I agree that you *mark it*, for crying out loud. You mark that, you mark explicit/adult, you mark AU....more information is better than less.

And I remember once upon a time there was a Sentinel gen mailing list. Wonder if it's archived anywhere.

In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults. ~Thomas Szasz

I love the Dresden Files and will continue to read them, but for the love of chocolate cake, Mr. Butcher, please stop describing Harry's lab every freaking time he goes into it! I read the first 5 books, I'm pretty sure I know what it looks like already!

I was reading a book in a popular sci-fi series, but I'm going to keep this vague. The main character from the story is a well-known character in a military hierarchy... let's say he's a Class 8 Thingdoer (who has evolved, over the years, from a Class 7 Thingdoer, because as you know, good work is rewarded with promotion in military circles). Well, it involves him meeting up with a character that, in canon, he last saw ten years ago, when she was Class 1 Thingdoer. Only now, she's a Class 9 (out-ranking our well-known chum). Only, here's the thing. Miss Class 1 was shown to be, at best, average. She was clumsy, if plucky, and when adversity struck it left her stunned and almost unable to function (except Mr Class 7 got her moving and thinking on a solution again).

Suddenly, in the amount of time it took an exceptional individual to go from Class 7 to 8, she shot all the way up *past* him to Class 9, AND became the Head Of Thingdoers in the process. This is a guy who's saved not only his unit, but the established setting on more than one occasion (in-canon!), and the book gave no explanation as to the Wondrous Deeds she would have had to perform to reach her rank, and no indication she'd become exceptional off-screen. Also, until he met her again, he didn't even seem to know she was Head Of Thingdoers, even though that's kind of something a Thingdoer would expect to know, wouldn't you think?

In the end, I quietly finished the book (it was only 90 pages), and have resolved never to revisit it. It's the first in a series, and there are others by different authors, so I'll give them a try, but oy.

It's Star Trek (Specifically Star Trek S.C.E.: Belly of the Beast). For those that follow Next Generation, remember Sonya Gomez, a plucky Ensign who spilled hot chocolate on Picard? Yeah, she's in charge of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers.